Monday, February 24, 2014

Fireball XL5

   Yesterday, Sadie invited me over to lunch. Her, and the hubster Mike, were hosting the college kids after church. Some type of retreat or meeting had sent a slug of the kids to parts unknown, and Sadie believed that they would (in effect) have too much food, unless I came to help devour it. I gave her one of my "non-answers", which promise nothing, and then thought better of it; and went on over.
   Killer lunch! "Lunchzilla", perhaps best describes here. Anyhow, later on; Mike and Steve were on the back porch. We three were banging gums, and thinking about the past. I made a comment; something like: "Isn't it weird (to you) that some of our earliest memories are of watching TV? As a little guy, I recall sitting and watching Felix the Cat (what a jerk he was!), Huckleberry Hound, and was it...'Fireball XL500?' You know, it's not even clear to me, that there really was such a show like that...Is that a memory, or did I make that up?". Next thing I know, Mike has his smart phone out; and was googling the fireball thing. He nailed it in about 27 seconds, and the next thing I knew, the theme song of the show was on. I was stunned.
   I hadn't heard that (dumb) song in over 50 years? Wow, what a blast from the past there. We went inside to watch a few out-takes from the show. 1962 is the year, so I'm (at that time) 3 or 4? It (apparently) was a huge impact on the young mind of little Mike (me). It is a kind of marionette drama, very simple "special effects", and pretty shallow plot lines, and yet, and yet...
   Fireball XL5 was the greatest show ever, bar none...to a 3 year old boy. It made such an impact, that some vestige of it, is still with me; and I'm well on my way to being an old man! This Fireball XL5 type of thinking, it's a fairly modern one. Think of Star Trek, or think of well written sci-fi. We get some sort of "dominion" reaching to the stars, a type of "federation", or an "empire-of-man", stretching out, with Earth at it's center. As a tyke, I was simply smitten by such enormities.
   When I became older, I pretty much gave up on the empire-of-man idea, for the excellent reason that man is a bunghole. Think of the way the natives here in the Americas were treated by the Europeans. If this is how man treats man, do we really wish to see how he would treat somebody he deems to be "a bug", or an "animal"? Man the creature, is a vile, mean spirited, disgusting thing, and then there are the unbelievers to consider!
   I began to think that the vast gulf between stars, was a good thing, so that man would simply be unable to go war upon, and destroy his neighbors. Think of it as a friendly desert, a wholesome quarantine. But this type of thinking was from before becoming a Christian. Nowadays, I am coming back (somewhat) to my youthful zeal, at the notion of flight to the stars.
   Perhaps one of the strangest texts in the Bible is in the Apocalypse of John. This is not a quote, but the idea is that in the new creation, there will be no moon, or sun. The drift here, is that such lights will (then) be unnecessary, since God Himself will be our light. But is the scripture proposing no heavenly bodies at all?
   How could that be? How could the prior creation prove to be more excellent and grand than the latter? Nah, there almost has to be stars, in that new world. Otherwise, you look up,...and see nothing? How did the new creation end up so dinky? So anyhow, the point of this essay, is to (once again) suggest an Earth-based kingdom, radiating out to the other worlds, no matter how far! Who will need spaceships then? We will be able to fly! And so, we go to find other races. Why? To tell them the gospel story, and how God; the Almighty, became for our good, and His glory...a Man!
    This message, sweeping across the galaxy, then across our local super-cluster of galaxies, so ever onward! God and Man have sat down! God and Man (in Christ at least) are One! Acceleration was invented, so as to carry news swiftly..just ask little boys, see how they run?
   I have told friends here in Las Cruces that I expect to go in search of that 3000 pound ground sloth, with the I.Q. of Isaac Newton, which I have guessed might well exist. That brainy sloth would know of God, and of the angels. If he is sharp, the Trinity might even be on his brain-page. But he will never see this coming...the Almighty,...that "hillbilly, nobody, carpenter"! If that new life (then) isn't about eager-ness, "boyness" in some way, who would want to go in any case?

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